The Eskimo are important because they lived in area where there was very harsh weather and learned how to thrive in their environment for thousands of years and all still thriving. They may not thrive the same way they used to but they are still living today. The earliest known Eskimo tribe apparead 5,000 years ago but have branched off into different countries and tribes. The Eskimo live in Canada, Greenland and Siberia i will be talking specifically about the Alaskan Eskimos.
All of the Eskimos in these countries are mostly still living today.
The Eskimos are the indigenous people who traditionally live in Siberia, Russia across Alaska, and Greenland but i will be specifically about the arctic Eskimos. The Eskimos live in Alaska where there are mountains and oceans. They got there food primarily from the ocean. The Alaskan winters are extremely harsh. The temperatures can drop below 0 degrees normally while wind gusts can reach from 30 to 50 miles per hour during blizzards.
Since the weather was so harsh they wore parkas parkas are finely crafted jackets made with caribou skin. The men would kill the caribou and use its whole body. They would use the skin for warmth for shelter and clothing and the fat to eat. Alaska is filled with large mountains, volcanic regions and wilderness.
Alaska is also home to the tallest mountain in the united states Mount Mckinley. Because the eskimo lives in a cold region with very harsh winters they relied on animal skin, driftwood, and bones as their very few resources.
They made some of their tools from soapstone, and ivry of walrus tusks. Historically the Eskimos lived in many different houses. In the summer the Eskimos would use caribou or seal skin to make a tent were they stayed during the fairly mild summers. In the winter the Eskimos would stay in shelters made of sod driftwood and sometimes stones. When the Eskimos where hunting they would make igloos to stay the night in. The Women would traditionally make the shelter while the men would hunt for for the animals to get the skin for the shelters.
The Eskimo spoke a Aleut language which is closely related to the Yupik language. I imagine that they would use animal skin and tusks or resources of animal body parts like tusks to write stuff down. There isn’t much on how they passed down their language but based on what I know i think the elders of the tribe wrote it down and kept records. Traditionally most Eskimos got their food from the sea. They used it not just for food but for shelter, tools, and weapons. The Eskimo people also fished and hunted for Caribou.
The Eskimos lived of the sea they got their food and everything else they needed to survive. They used the skin from animals to make warm clothes for the winter. They also used the skin to make shelters such as teppes. They would make most of their tools out of the ivory from the walrus tusks. That’s why without the ocean the Eskimos couldn’t have been living today. The Eskimos cold not farm because of there extremely harsh winters and poor geography for farming to. The Eskimo would make their tools by carefully carving walrus tusks or other resources into knives for hunting and cooking.
Soapstone was the only of the only things they traded but the most important. The Eskimo traded with other groups near them for things such as furs sinew and sometimes even copper. Soapstone was very valuable so if a group had it other groups would be willing to trade other stuff that the tribe with soapstone might not have. So gaining surplus of what you had to trade for other stuff that they where lacking was very important Eskimo groups. There were many leaders in a group. They did not appoint them it was whoever stepped to be leader in the community, group, tribe ect.
They would be appointed by who provided the most for the group. The groups would mainly work together though because they thought they would all be stronger together and by using teamwork. Although they all worked together they would all work on what their strengths were so they would have specialized jobs and tasks. The eskimo people’s religion revolved around the spiritual world and that all animals and things were spiritually connected. For example, they believed that all people and things lived on as a spirit after they died. They did not believe in gods but they believed that everything in the natural world was connected spiritually and would move on and live as a spirit.
Eskimo Nation Of Alaska. (2023, Jan 08). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/eskimo-nation-of-alaska/